California Dreamin'

We've just returned from California for an unofficial family reunion. Unofficial because not everyone in Ammon's family were there but, nonetheless, there was a huge gathering. All of us out-of-towners stayed at grandma and grandpa Maughan's house in Palos Verdes. All the beds and couches were taken by the time we arrived so we just pulled up some floor. Talk about a full house!

Dolphins
We really enjoyed being on the beach this particular morning. Ammon and his brother Ricky went running (I went too but not with them- I'm way too slow for them) while Connor played in the ocean with his aunts Amy and Sarah. While in the water, the kids saw what they feared were sharks but what thankfully turned out to be dolphins swimming very near them.
Once we were ready to leave, we went up to this overlook (nicknamed "dolphin point"). We could see those dolphins still very clearly go up and down the shoreline. There were about 6 of them. Way cool!

Here's Connor on the dolphin statue. He really liked the tail. So much so that he decided to take a "nap" on it. He jumped down to get our beach towels, carefully folded one into a pillow and had us drape the other one over him like a blanket. Too cute!

Check out the sweaty (and not too sweet-smelling) brothers after their run ;)

Temple
Early Saturday morning, before all our projects got started, we adults headed to the Los Angeles Temple to do sealings. It was a wonderful and spiritually-bonding experience. My heart took a picture. :)

Projects

Most everyone that didn't live nearby had come out to California for a week. We, unfortunately, were only able to be there for a 3-day weekend. It was quite a crammed schedule while we were there.

Before we arrived many of the family had done some yard work, organization projects, and had torn the carpet from grandma's bathroom. Yet to do were several projects that we were able to help with. The mega project was to put in a new floor in the bathroom. Friday had us at the hardware store checking out vinyl floors. Saturday we were shopping for new bathroom and household items. We also food shopped for the large family dinner on Sunday.

Late Saturday evening found several of the family members figuring out the vinyl floor. Ammon and I stayed up really late actually laying the floor and putting the toilet back on. Sacrificing a little sleep was worth it to serve Ammon's grandparents and to learn some kickin' new "skills"! We were quite happy with the results, even though we didn't have time to get the baseboard on.
Ammon also had his dad give him a haircut. I usually give him his haircuts so I was grateful for the break. Besides, his dad does a much better job in half the time!

Enjoying ourselves
In addition to the hard work, we had time for some good play.

Here's Connor enjoying his big Uncle Ricky on the stairs.
Connor is inside this sleeping bag that Aunt Amy is carrying. He had so much fun playing with this bag. He hatched out of it like it was a dinosaur egg, he used it as a slide to go down the stairs shown above, he made himself into a worm and even a genie inside it...so creative.

Sweet Aunt Liza, Uncle Mark's wife.
Grandpa taking a snooze while dinner is getting ready. If you look closely, you can see the amazing view of the ocean, beach and city they have from their front windows. At night, they call it their treasure box because all the lights twinkle and sparkle. Just beautiful.
One evening we went out to the beach to see the sunset. As you can see, we didn't quite make it.
Maughan parents with their four children. The one on the right is Ammon's mom. l to r: Sue (youngest), Marilyn (oldest daughter), Mark (oldest), Gwendolyn (middle daughter).
Ammon's sweet grandparents

The game of Life

Connor just loves this game! On this particular day, he wanted the dog to be one of the players. Here he is moving the doggie's car around.




























He thinks it's fun to spin the spinner and move the cars. Sometimes he likes to stack the cars and call them "chitty-chitty-bang-bang-cars". I love it when he says "I'm getting married mom"- I actually thought that moment wouldn't come for another 20 years! Then he starts getting babies- he has more children than me (that might not be hard to do in the game of Life or in real life)! I was telling Ammon that the game of Life seems to be more kind to us than our real lives!

Pump It Up

For our playgroup last week, we went to Pump It Up. We had never been there before (we've only been to one in Fort Collins). Connor had such a great time!

The three musketeers.

As we were walking in, Connor reached out and held hands with his friend Hayes who then took Scott's hand. So cute!

As cute from the front as the back.

Sliding down the huge blow-up slide. When Connor went up there the first time, he was too scared to go down and climbed back down the stairs! When I asked him, he said it was "too big". After playing in the other areas, he mustered the courage to try again, and then went again and again and again!

Happily coming out of a jumping room.

He shoots...

He scores!

Connor had a great fascination with this little coup car. He kept coming back to it after jumping.

Getting out...

To pump the gas. Hey, we're teaching him young!

Climbing up a slide inside a jumping tube.

Connor going down the slide with his friend Scott behind him.

Monsoon Mondays

At the Children's Museum during the month of July they offer $1 admissions for families Monday evenings. We decided to take advantage of one of these for Family Night. Connor just loved it and it was fun for Ammon to see a place I had taken Connor before.

Climbing the rock wall. He's a good climber!

This is a cool jumping room decorated like a South American rain forest.

Connor covering the hole that his friend Ayla is trying to come out of.
Putting letter and animal magnets up on the new board in the jumping room.

Writing on the chalk board. Inside this box he drew, he wrote the alphabet.

Connor waited and then snagged this cart from a kid that left the shopping area. He had fun unloading (taking the stuff out of the cart that the other kid had put in there) and loading up new food.

Offering food to daddy.

Yum, this is good!

Connor set the table for us and then had us "eat" together.

We had a great time!

Swimming lessons

After those water scares, I was really glad to have signed Connor up for swimming lessons. He actually learned a lot and now everytime we go to the pool, he wants to practice what he learned.

He was in a small class (just 2 kids) so he had a lot of personal attention. Both of these kids were pretty scared of the water at first (Connor cried on the first day when the teacher dunked him) but they conquered it by the end.

Connor even became quite fearless, jumping in to his teacher wildly.
Another try.

Practicing going underwater.

All done, good job!

On the last day of class after he was all done and had gotten out of the pool, he decided to jump back in one more time on his own. Only, he didn't jump in forward, he jumped in backwards and, you guessed it, whacked his cute little chin on the edge of the pool. Ouch!

He didn't react so I thought he must not be bleeding- wrong. Once he got out of the pool, he was leaning over it again and I could see the blood dripping. He had sliced his chin way underneath so it didn't look bloody when you looked at him straight-on. Once he saw that he was bleeding, he started crying and wanting me to hold him, which I did.

I told his teacher/lifeguards and they took him to the lifeguard cabin to clean him up. Once the lifeguard was cleaning him up, I had to get a picture to document this almost fitting end to his swim lessons.

The next day, the teachers had a lunch party and gave out awards. Ammon took him (his day off) and got this picture. Yeah, Connor passed! He's not a fish yet but he at least is familiar with and feels more comfortable around water than he did before.

Claymation

Connor is quite creative and he absolutely loves clay.

This is Jafar (the villan from Alladin). He also made a genie in a bottle and Iago (the parrot), which are not pictured.
Connor also loves to act out what he sees in movies or reads in books. He assigned Ammon to be Jafar, me to be the Princess Jasmine and he was the Genie. We had to act out a few "scenes" as he remembered them (not necessarily how they actually happened- he's so funny).

Connor can nearly tell time!

The other day he made this clock out of clay. Ammon and I were really impressed.

A few days later he looked at the clock in our kitchen and said it was "9:30" (not a digital clock). I asked him how he knew and he told me the little hand was on the 9 and the big hand was on the 6. I was aghast. I mean, we've not worked with him on this. The only thing I can think of that we've done is read him a book called "Time to..." that shows what a little boy does at different times of the day. Come to think of it, that book doesn't deal with quarter- or half-hour increments so I really don't know where he figured it out. He's just a smartie I guess.

"It's Cousin Aidan!"

That was Connor's excited exclamation when he saw Aidan. We saw him when we got together with my Uncle Stan and Aunt Brenda for dinner while my brother Brian was still here. It was great to get the boys together again (they are second cousins). Aidan is 5 and Connor is 4.

Here they are coloring pictures next to each other.














Sharing a yummy dessert!